|
It really depends on the place and the deal. If it was the case of "Hey, do some jobs for 40 hours this month and you can use our sexy big stage with an 80+ audience on an off night for a four week run," I would be all over that. If it was more "Look, work for us for free five days a week for a year, and we let you stand on a crate under a spotlight next Tuesday at midnight" I would probably say no. Sadly, I think the second situation is more likely to happen at certain theatres.
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2011 18:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 04:56 |
|
|
Yeah, there are already places in town that will let you put up shows for free or dirt loving cheap, so it's a question of the quality of the house and what sort of work you'd be doing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2011 21:31
|
|
|
OSheaman posted:I don't know the answer to this as I haven't really done much research into grad schools, but if I had to guess I'd say your best bet might be with Columbia College. They have a bunch of incredibly diverse MFA programs and I think you probably have a better bet there than a more traditional program somewhere else. Sadly, though, Columbia's theater department doesn't have a grad program at all. Northwestern and DePaul are two good theater programs in Chicago, though I'm afraid I don't know much about them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2011 11:20
|
|
|
Charles Dickings posted:Sadly, though, Columbia's theater department doesn't have a grad program at all. Northwestern and DePaul are two good theater programs in Chicago, though I'm afraid I don't know much about them. Wasn't he saying film? I thought the film department had a grad program.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2011 17:11
|
|
|
OSheaman posted:Wasn't he saying film? I thought the film department had a grad program. Well they have a "grad" program, is you want to call it that. All the Grad student I knew there really hated the program. Depaul's theater program is actually top notch, from what I hear it is pretty hard to get into.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2011 17:44
|
|
|
Sammy French left us high and dry and never got back to us, so we're not doing Chicago. Now we're just doing our student directed full-length that, god bless her, I just can't get behind. The whole thing seems like an adolescent take on an Orwellian dystopia, complete with commentary on aged modernist analytic philosophy. The two main characters are adolescents in a world of faceless, mask-wearing adults and the whole time I kept thinking this feels a whole lot like The Giver. My hopes and aspirations for this semester are going downhill fast. At least my professor's going to get back to me about Red.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2011 03:49
|
|
|
I feel your pain, Pauli. I had to track down my director to return my calls; she doesn't want to do the play. Good news: I got the Kickstarter account. I've commissioned a poster, posted on a big well trafficed forum, and sent it to a friend of mine who'd be a great fit. But being a week into the semester means it'll be much harder to find unavailable people. At my college, people throw themselves into as many things as they can, as soon as they can.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2011 04:01
|
|
|
One of my big pet peeves is people not returning phone calls or e-mails until it's too late to do anything about it. I've lost out on a few projects because, by the time I realized it was too late to get the people I wanted, it was too late to get anybody. I'm getting quite good at guerrilla productions, though. Nothing quite like putting something up on a month's notice with a fifty dollar budget, some cardboard, and a roll of aluminum foil.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2011 15:18
|
|
|
Sean Connery put it best, I think, all the way back in 1987; "That's the Chicago way!"
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2011 23:37
|
|
|
So I'm taking a workshop for actors and though I am trying to take it seriously as the other students, I can only see some sort amusement when it comes to the whole "creative" process. For example, we are being taught how when it comes to character devolopment, the smallest influences that you create make for a better performance. The more creative you are in making a scene/monologue descriptive, the more you are able to tap into that character. I was wondering if anyone has dealt with this type of thing and found the whole process somewhat amusing but that it does eventually help? Then again, maybe this furthers the idea that actors take every thing way too seriously.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 01:56
|
|
|
FleshColoredBeard posted:So I'm taking a workshop for actors and though I am trying to take it seriously as the other students, I can only see some sort amusement when it comes to the whole "creative" process. The whole point of the dichotomy was to let us find what works best for ourselves. Some people need to go deep into method acting but bring away amazing performances. Some people just practice their lines and actions and do just as well. Some people fall in the middle. Scoffing at actors' creative process doesn't hold water once you realize that developing a character can be a varied process. Are you an actor who works well with an approach that doesn't require detail or method work? To you this may all seem silly, and rightfully so, but it may work for others. Then again, finding a style that works naturally for the actor should be the main goal of an intro level or workshop acting class. Higher level or specialty acting classes is where more specialized methods should be taught.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 02:29
|
|
|
Named Ashamed posted:When I took Intro to Acting as part of my Theatre major, we were required to read both Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting and David Mamet's True and False. Uta instructed us in a very complex system of character creation and method acting to create character even behind the scenes. Mamet shat all over method acting and told us to simply say the words and do the actions based on script instruction. I have taken beginning acting and am simultaneously doing intermediate acting with the workshop, though I noticed the intermediate and the workshop are both very similar in teaching. In the beginner class, we were just given a script and went with the scene/monologue descriptions. No finding out the objectives, tactics, beats, etc. This is what I was used to because there was no emphasis on creating a character and thinking like the character. Now that i'm in these particular classes where we are getting technical, it seems like a creative writing class than an acting class. Which is too bad considering both teachers seems set on the creative thinking and if it helps one actor that's okay, but I'd love for them to explore different ways, like method acting. However, that in itself might not work for some which I can understand as well. Then again, it's all been an interesting experience so far considering i'm a techie at heart. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 07:59
|
|
|
I don't have the focus to do a lot of method stuff; I make broad, big choices to start out and refine over the course of the rehearsal process. It's an instinctual thing for me, and I feel a lot more "real" with the character at the end of that process than I do working on backstory and sense memory and creating a past involving the shampoo the character used when he was 5 years old. That's just me, though; I've worked with a lot of talented people who would come into the first readthrough with pages and pages and pagesandpagesandpagesandpages of notes about their character. My only gripe is with people who come in with an ironclad idea of their character and refuse to let rehearsal or direction shape that image at all. Everyone's worked with someone like this before--usually it's an amateur actor who doesn't understand how to rehearse well, but sometimes it's someone who's gotten quite far in their career, or--God forbid--has achieved real fame and thus feels like their process is Perfect And Doesn't Need Direction.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 15:54
|
|
|
OSheaman posted:My only gripe is with people who come in with an ironclad idea of their character and refuse to let rehearsal or direction shape that image at all. I directed a show where one of the actors thought his character should be retarded. I told him that it was a bad move for the feel of the show and borderline offensive, and he went along with that until the show went up. He then went back to playing a mentally ill character. Pretty annoying. The worst kind of actor, I think, is the hipster sketch-improv actor who doesn't want to convey any emotion in any character at all, ever. They pretty much play themselves all the time (I've been down that road myself), but don't realize that they aren't really all that interesting. It's kind of like wrestlers who only want to play unstoppable killing machines who don't get hurt. As far as adding nuances to your character method style, I think there's benefits to it so long as you make everything look natural. If it doesn't look natural, all I can hear when I watch performers is "Look at me acting, I'm acting, look at me purposefully rubbing my fingers together, how awesome at acting am I? I'm such a good actor." Or, "I am Debra Messing."
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 16:44
|
|
|
You mean "Emmy Award-Winning Actress Debra Messing" 
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 16:58
|
|
|
antiloquax posted:The worst kind of actor, I think, is the hipster sketch-improv actor who doesn't want to convey any emotion in any character at all, ever. They pretty much play themselves all the time... Holy crap, by any chance are you also in my intermediate acting class? Every time we are doing improv, this. Everyone in the class is laughing along with him like he's the most funniest person ever and the guy knows it. drat you hipster actors! 
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 17:12
|
|
|
FleshColoredBeard posted:Holy crap, by any chance are you also in my intermediate acting class? Every time we are doing improv, this. Everyone in the class is laughing along with him like he's the most funniest person ever and the guy knows it. drat you hipster actors! Let them have their moment in the classroom because it won't go anywhere in the real theater/improv community.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 17:22
|
|
|
You can have some fun by forcing him into serious scenes every time you improvise with him. Don't play for laughs, and make sure your characters are as grounded and depressing as possible. When I used to improvise like that, my breakthrough was being forced to be an apologetic, abusive father. It tapped into a well of emotions I didn't know was there, and it's been useful ever since.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 17:39
|
|
|
One thing that particularly bugs me are actors (and directors) who are single-technique. Different roles, different shows call for different techniques (and when it comes to directing, not all actors work the same way god dammit). Now I never really studied acting, I've learned as I went along starting at a very, very young age so I don't have a technique per se but I can appreciate the value of them. It seems to me though, that they are means and not an end of themselves, which is how I so often see them used. My instinct is that one shouldn't let technique become a crutch. On the other hand, Bale, DeNiro and Day-Lewis seem to be doing alright so I guess one's mileage varies.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 18:23
|
|
|
rantmo posted:One thing that particularly bugs me are actors (and directors) who are single-technique. Different roles, different shows call for different techniques (and when it comes to directing, not all actors work the same way god dammit). Now I never really studied acting, I've learned as I went along starting at a very, very young age so I don't have a technique per se but I can appreciate the value of them. It seems to me though, that they are means and not an end of themselves, which is how I so often see them used. My instinct is that one shouldn't let technique become a crutch. On the other hand, Bale, DeNiro and Day-Lewis seem to be doing alright so I guess one's mileage varies. When I direct, the first question I ask an actor is, "How do you want to be directed?" Most actors are stunned at this, but it really helps build a good working relationship. Some say, "tell me exactly what you want and I'll do it," and others have said, "step back and let me play then tell me where to fix it." I usually don't give any directions for the first few read-through because I love seeing the choices they make without any suggestion, sometimes it gives a whole new depth and dimension to the character I never believe existed.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2011 18:40
|
|
|
Just want to bump this thread to bitch about Steppenwolf canceling tonight's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf because of the incoming snowstorm. I've already bitched about this in the Chicago thread but come on Steppenwolf, I want to see your blockbuster show!!
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2011 19:13
|
|
|
I've updated my play in response to some of your comments, Nick. It's opening in late April or early May here, got a new director. I'm not changing the ending but it's better supported.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2011 19:23
|
|
|
Theatre by the Sea requires musical experience of their stage managers  My school sucks.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2011 06:30
|
|
|
Could somebody do me a favor and recommend a monologue for an audition? I'm not certain about this one, as I've done nothing but musicals. It's for Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and I hear the director wants to see "our dark side" in the monologue. I read about the play and have a good idea of what it's about, I just haven't read, watched, or performed in anything exceptionally dark. Odd, that. Thanks.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2011 07:37
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:Could somebody do me a favor and recommend a monologue for an audition? I'm not certain about this one, as I've done nothing but musicals. Down the Road by Lee Blessing has several serial killer monologues. Eric Bogosian is usually dark. His piece "Molecules" from one of his One Man shows, either "Pounding nails in the floor with my forehead" or "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll," is more gross than dark, but still dark. Christopher Durang always does Black Comedy. Try "Man" from Laughing Wild. More angry at the world than evil though. David Harrower's Blackbird is about a pedophile. Actually not that dark in an "evil" sense, but you might find something there. LeRoi Jones' Dutchman has a monologue about how all we really need to do is kill somebody instead of letting out our aggression in art. The character is a 70's black man, so that might not work if you're not black. Neil LaBute's "bash: the latter day plays" is all monologues. In one a young Mormon recounts his murder of a gay man. In another a Mormon father talks about secretly smothering his baby child when he thought he had lost his job and home. Byron Lavery's Frozen is about a serial killer, but also has perspectives from the victim's family too. David Mamet. Glengarry Glen Ross and Sexual Perversity in Chicago have some male monologues where the male speakers justify a perverse worldview. Those might be a stretch though. They're not really evil. William Mastrosimone's Extremities has a rapist break into the home of 3 women. He does one monologue gloating about how he's going to rape them all. Probably more there too. Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman has twisted poo poo the whole way through. Goldmine, but may be a little overdone at this point, especially for "dark" auditions. Charles Mee's Bobrauschenbergamerica has a Mass Murderer Monologue from "Bob The Pizza Boy". He killed his family in a fit of rage, and tries logic to the audience why he should be forgiven. Sam Shepard is often dark. Buried Child and The Curse of the Starving Class have men who are in complete despair about inheriting the failure of their fathers and America. Surreal too. Michael Weller's Moonchildren has the Landlord of the characters' apartment burst in to tell them a twisted dream about ruling a village of African natives and impregnating the females with semen filled leaves.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2011 09:28
|
|
|
I loving hate monologues and I wish they would go away forever.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2011 14:17
|
|
|
Everyone hates monologues. They're like what Winston Churchill said about Democracy.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2011 15:41
|
|
|
They happen to be one of the characteristics of Theatre that is distinctly unique to it. I mean, no other medium does monologues with so much variety and so well. As a playwright, I wouldn't see them disappear quite yet. But, some of you are vindicated in your hate. There are those who write monologues for all the wrong purposes in Theatre. Those monologues suck.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2011 18:33
|
|
|
I never use monologues in auditions I'm running because I assume most people have terrible taste and I don't want to listen to ten minutes of bad Shakespeare because they don't have the sense to know what to pick. Admittedly these are amateur productions, but waiting for someone to finish a terrible monologue when I decided four seconds into it that they couldn't act (but that I was probably going to have to cast them anyway) is not my idea of a good time. Of course dry readings suck too, but at least they're less annoying for me than monologues.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2011 19:28
|
|
|
I'm sorry, I should be clear; I don't mind monologues as a theatrical convention I hate auditioning with monologues. I would rather do a cold read with sides they put into my hands seconds before I went on stage than audition with a monologue.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2011 20:14
|
|
|
I tend to write audition monologues when I'm casting an original play. It takes a while but I find it really rewarding to get into the characters. And they make great extras.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2011 23:41
|
|
|
Named Ashamed posted:Jerry from Edward Albee's The Zoo Story is popular staple, but done to death. My goodness that's a sizable list. Thank you kindly.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2011 02:02
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:My goodness that's a sizable list. Thank you kindly. The only one I wouldn't do is Jerry from Zoo Story because he's not kidding when he says it's overdone. Most casting directors I know make a policy of stopping people when they announce "Zoo Story" and asking if they have anything else. It's the 'Viola's Ring Speech' of modern monologues. Seriously Jerry get over the drat dog already OSheaman fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Feb 3, 2011 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2011 15:55
|
|
|
This is one I really like. It is from a movie (gasp!) called The Cardnial By Robert Dozier Stephen Fermoyle: I’m not sure I could separate one reason from the others and say: “That’s what did it.” I don’t think I was meant to be a priest to begin with. It wasn’t my idea. My parents decided it when I was a baby. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t an established thing. Like dad being to one to go out and earn a living… Mom staying home to care for the house and kids. Nobody every questioned it. I never questioned it. A dollar a week was put aside for my education. A dollar a week out of a motorman’s pay. By the time I was in seventh grade my brother was calling me “the Cardinal.” The only doubt I had, I wasn’t sure I had the strength to be a good priest… to deny myself what had to be denied… to live without the softness of a woman. On the other side, there was the scholastic part. I liked my courses; I was good at them, as long as it was all theory and no practice… I felt I was where I belonged. But then came the time when I was on my own… when I had to function as God’s anointed… answering people’s questions about what was right, what was wrong… making decisions for them. And one day, it was my own sister who needed my help. And I found I couldn’t help her. Because what she needed was a man, a friend, a brother. And all I could be was a judge with a set of rules. And finally the time came when my being a priest meant she had to die. I did what I had to do, I know that. What I had to do as a priest, as an agent of God’s law… I couldn’t do what a layman would do in the same situation: pretend that he’d never heard of the law. I don’t challenge the rules. I just don’t want to be the one to enforce them. Not for anybody’s sister. I don’t want the power over other people’s lives. I can’t face the responsibility. That’s what it really comes down to. I sit in the confessional, listening to someone tell his sins and I’m the one who’s trembling in terror. I don’t know what will become of me. I must find what else I can do. But I think, I pray that there may be another kind of life for me. A life I was meant for… that will let me sleep nights. The only monologue tip I was ever told was to stay away from ones that are just recaps of a story, try to find ones that are in the present.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2011 17:28
|
|
|
York_M_Chan posted:The only monologue tip I was ever told was to stay away from ones that are just recaps of a story, try to find ones that are in the present. Not just in the present, but something that involves you attempting to "get" something from a partner. Anything self-absorbed or involving you "exploring your feelings" with nobody else in in the room will be incredibly boring to watch. *Why* are you telling someone this story? What do you want from that person? How does this story help you get (whatever it is) from that person? If you can't answer those questions then the monologue probably isn't going to be engaging enough. That one from The Cardinal is OK but it's heavily memory-based so you have to be careful in how you choose to present it. Don't "re-live the moments"; stay in the present and use those past experiences to affect your partner.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2011 19:08
|
|
|
I got cast as the lead and principal in a dramatic short film and a sci-fi short/music video respectively earlier this week. I have to say, anecdotally, that these directors are so much better than the folks that direct me in short comedy sketches. I'm working with both sets of directors to build characters and it just feels so much better than "Just say the lines and we'll be out of here in an hour". It's almost enough to make me quit the improv/sketch scene altogether. To contribute, I actually love to see monologues in a script. I feel like they give you some meat to tear into, but I understand the qualms everyone has with them. As for dark side monologues, maybe Jensen's speech from "Network"? Not so much dark as megalomaniacal.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2011 16:52
|
|
|
The problem is that so many monologues are so masturbatory. My eyes just glaze over and I hear Jon Lovitz yelling "AAAC-TING!" when I see/hear them. They have a lot of power when done right and are a perfect encapsulation of everything that's wrong with pretentious script writing when they're not. Sadly, there doesn't appear to be a video on all of the internet of him doing that. Stupid NBC and hulu.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2011 17:31
|
|
|
Geekboy posted:The problem is that so many monologues are so masturbatory. My eyes just glaze over and I hear Jon Lovitz yelling "AAAC-TING!" when I see/hear them. They have a lot of power when done right and are a perfect encapsulation of everything that's wrong with pretentious script writing when they're not.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2011 15:18
|
|
|
Anybody have any experience or advice about Nunsense? Or even any good Youtube videos you might know of, I'm trying to see if it would be a good fit for my University.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2011 00:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 04:56 |
|
|
It's your typical "take your family to a dinner theater on Christmas" type of show. Wholesome and funny, but not particularly hard hitting about anything. It's very well written as a genre blend of farce and sketch comedy. I remember it being pretty hilarious when I was taken to see it at a dinner theater as a teen. However, it's not much more than entertainment as I recall.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2011 05:00
|
|